Spanning more than half a century, García Márquez’s archive includes original manuscript material, predominantly in Spanish, for 10 books, from One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) to Love in the Time of Cholera (1985) to Memories of My Melancholy Whores (2004); more than 2,000 pieces of correspondence, including letters from Carlos Fuentes and Graham Greene; drafts of his 1982 Nobel Prize acceptance speech; more than 40 photograph albums documenting all aspects of his life over nearly nine decades; the Smith Corona typewriters and computers on which he wrote some of the 20th century’s most beloved works; and scrapbooks meticulously documenting his career via news clippings from Latin America and around the world.

Highlights in the archive include multiple drafts of García Márquez’s unpublished novel We’ll See Each Other in August, research for The General in His Labyrinth (1989), and a heavily annotated typescript of the novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold (1981). The materials document the gestation and changes of García Márquez’s works, revealing the writer’s struggle with language and structure.

Born in Colombia, García Márquez began his career as a journalist in the 1940s, reporting from Bogotá and Cartagena and later serving as a foreign correspondent in Europe and Cuba. In 1961, he moved to Mexico City. Alongside his prolific journalism career, García Márquez published many works of fiction, including novels, novellas and multiple short story collections and screenplays. He published the first volume of his three-part memoir Vivir Para Contarla (Living to Tell the Tale) in 2002.

Future plans relating to the archive include digitizing portions of the collection to make them widely accessible and a university symposium to explore the breadth and influence of García Márquez’s life and career. The García Márquez materials will be accessible once processed and cataloged.

Image: Gabriel García Márquez working on One Hundred Years of Solitude. Photograph by Guillermo Angulo.

By Jane Robbins Mize

This year, novelist Jim Crace, whose archive resides in the Ransom Center, has received an award of $150,000 for his fiction writing. Presented by Yale University, the Windham Campbell Prize is awarded to writers of fiction, nonfiction, and drama to financially support their literary endeavors.

Upon receiving the award, Crace said, “After a couple of years of creative doubt when I thought I might not write another novel but should turn instead to the theatre, I have rediscovered my passion for fiction. Stories are crowding in, demanding their space on the page. The Windham Campbell Prize at Yale gives me the independence and the confidence to take on those stories, free from everyday pressures. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. My gratitude couldn’t be greater.”

Crace’s writing is celebrated for its powerful style, inspired by the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez and rich with the natural imagery of imagined worlds. He is the author of 13 award-winning novels, including Continent (1986), Quarantine (1997),and Being Dead (1999). Crace has served as a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at the James A. Michener Center for Writers at The University of Texas at Austin. His most recent novel, Harvest, was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

To celebrate Crace’s achievement, Cultural Compass will be giving away a signed copy of his novel The Pesthouse. To be eligible to win, tweet a link to this blog post and mention @ransomcenter. If you’re not on Twitter, send an email to hrcgiveaway(at)gmail.com with “Crace” in the subject line. All tweets and emails must be sent by midnight CST tonight, and winners will be drawn and notified by Monday, May 12. [Update: This giveaway is closed, and the winner has been notified.]